I found a memoir of a southern gentleman named Richard
Taylor who lived in the South during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Born in 1926, Taylor had been raised as a
"good ole boy" in the South. Upon
his death in 1879, he published these memoirs covering his life from when the
South seceded until his death. He was
interested in portraying the "Lost Cause" interpretation of the war
which emphasizes the ideas that the Union only won the war due to the fact that
they had an insurmountable advantage in troops and resources and that the
Confederate soldiers and leaders outperformed their Union counterparts. He stresses the fortitude of the Southern
people to deal with the loss of the war, as well as the post war conditions
forced by the Union.
Taylor describes the atrocities and suffering inflicted
upon the Confederacy during the war, but makes it clear that although they were
bad, "they were as nothing compared to those inflicted upon them after its
close."(p.236) He downplays the
role of slavery by saying that the extinction of the institution was "expected
by all and regretted by none, although the loss of slaves destroyed the value
of land", making it seem as though Southerners did not mind the abolition
of slavery following the war. Taylor
says the biggest concern for Southerners following the war were the
"carpet baggers" that migrated from the North after the end of the
war.
As we learned in class, most of these carpet baggers were
headed south looking to capitalize financially, but many ended up capitalizing
politically. Taylor takes a stab at the
carpet baggers by saying that "Famine and pestilence have always followed
war, as if Mother Earth resented the defilement of her fair bosom by blood, and
generated fatal diseases to punish humanity for its crimes. But there fell upon
the South a calamity surpassing any recorded in the annals or traditions of
man." It is the carpet baggers he
is referring to. He describes them as
"worse than Attila the Hun" and says that "honest men (loyal
Southerners) regarded them as monsters".
Taylor claims that the carpet baggers "had been kept
by force of bayonets for four years upon the necks of an unwilling people, had
no title to a seat in the Senate, and was notoriously despised by every
inhabitant of the State which he was seated to misrepresent." If it was not for the enforced political
structure implemented by the federal government, these carpet baggers would not
serve the southern people. They do not
represent the true South, they were only elected because of the large black population
in the South. Taylor personally believes
that the carpet baggers have inflicted damage that is unforgivable. He says, "They have indicted such
countless and cruel wrongs on the Southern people as to forbid any hope of
disposition or ability to forgive their victims."
Although Taylor makes it clear that the people of the
South have been mistreated and betrayed, he commends the former Confederates
for how they have handled the entire situation.
Southerners just want to run their own government again as the
forefathers intended. The twelve years
following the war were viewed as an imprisonment by Taylor and fellow
ex-Confederates. Richard Taylor's opinion was likely shared by a majority of whites in the South at the time.
Works Cited
Taylor, Richard. Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal
Experiences of the Late War. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1879. http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/taylor/taylor.html#taylor239
(accessed April 23, 2013).
I found it interesting that he actually wrote the Southerns outperformed their Union counterparts, because isn't that what anyone side would argue if they put up a good fight? I also found it interesting that they viewed the carpet baggers as "monsters," wonder what these so called monsters viewed the hostile Southerns as?
ReplyDeleteTaylor's writing is actually very similar to many stereotypical things I have heard about this time period, probably because some notions of the South are highly romanticized or falsified. His style of writing when discussing the Carpetbaggers is also interesting to me, since he says they were worse than Attila the Hun, when all they were really doing was seeking economic stability or a place in politics. However, it perhaps would look different from his perspective, since Southerners had a notion that the Northerners were "invading" their homeland after the war, and turning their lives upside down. I do think if I was a Southerner during that time I would resent someone not familiar with the landscape being put in charge of my government, and as a result, my life.
ReplyDeleteAfter having read a lot about Radical Republicans and carpetbaggers, it is interesting for me to read this account from the "other" prominent perspective of this time period. Most Southerners saw "carpetbaggers" as corrupt, greedy men who would do anything to satisfy their ambitions. However, as Jennifer noted above, carpetbaggers were often just northerners seeking prosperity. In fact, some of them (e.g. Adelbert Ames) became idealists in support of black equality.
ReplyDeleteI believe this memoir is a good example of normal Southern sympathies at the time. For example, the way Taylor describes the "true South" as only its white population offers a representative example of the atmosphere of racial hate and white supremacy in the South.